Advice Needed - Issue with Our Boxer Girl

[Ileana]

Hello everyone,

Our Grace is the sweetest boxer puppy: exhuberant, happy, full of energy beyond belief. She has excellent guard dog instincts and she is very trainable. She mastered the standard obedience instruction: sit, down, stay, come (90% success rate ), off, leave it, and so on. She even handles more complex commands, as "get in the car, to your place, and sit."

But... she is acting very strange with other dogs, and even with some humans.

With other dogs, the first few minutes she is super happy, wiggles, licks the other dog to death, then starts growling and pawing the other dog, and, well, not all dogs enjoy this. Sometimes she even growls angrily. She never bit anyone, but sometimes I feel she would bite if we wouldn't be there to intervene.

With some humans, as of a few days ago, she started to do the same. After wiggling and licking the humans she meets for a few minutes, the moment they get a bit too familiar wih her, she growls or even snarls at them. If the person backs away, she calms down instantly. She only does this with some people - not sure what her criteria are.

She is quite the head turner - very pretty, so a lot of people want to pet her...

Has anyone ever encountered that with their female boxer? Please help - all advice welcome as we are running out of options. We went to puppy school twice, to socialize her fully, but have seen very little improvement. We did motivational and clicker training with her, nothing involving brutal maneuvers or anything like that.

Please help!
Much appreciated...

 

[TwoDogs]

My guess is that she is not as excited, friendly and loveable and happy about the greetings as you think. The super wiggly, excessive licking that you are interpreting as joy at greeting could very well be appeasement guestures meant to difuse what she sees as a stressful event.

I often see pups and dogs that get all wiggly submissive, tuck their body, give lots of "kisses", or offer up their tummies on greeting. People interpret that as love, affection, and wanting their bellies rubbed. In fact, most times these dogs just want to be ignored. They may be curious and want to get near to sniff and investigate, but once there they become overwhelmed by the social pressure. If the appeasement guestures don't work, then they have no choice but to resort to aggressive measures to get the greeting to stop.

The big red flag for me was when you said "After wiggling and licking the humans she meets for a few minutes, the moment they get a bit too familiar wih her, she growls or even snarls at them. If the person backs away, she calms down instantly." I assume that by "get a bit too familiar with her" you mean they start to pet her more, interact with her, apply some social pressure to her. When they back away, she doesn't aggress any more. That's because the social pressure has been relieved.

If it is as I think and she is actually somewhat anxious about greeting people and dogs, I would work hard now to make sure that her greetings are low-key and that they have a minimal amount of social pressure put on her. What you don't want her learning is that every greeting is going to be stressful and that aggression is a good tactic for reducing that stress. Instead you want her to gain confidence through interactions that don't put a lot of stress on her so that she comes to enjoy greetings.

 

[ELubas]

Has she been evaluated by a behavorist? Sounds like she is fearful to me. She is at the right age for her fears to surface. A couple of classes are not going to fix that. Socialization is an ongoing, life long way of life. I agree that until you know what is going on you want to minimize her stress. Do you know anyone who has a relaxed, older dog you could just leash walk with? If she can tolerate and even enjoy that kind of walk then I suspect she is just overwhelmed. And I would not encourage overly enthusiastic greetings with people. It is ok to say no thanks to people. I had a very timid girl and I would say to people, "Thank you but we are not meeting and greeting today" and just keep going. I always tried to "manage" her social life and by the time she grew up she was quite confident.

I am interested in your comment about her having "excellent guard dog instincts"-in what way? Just wondering if there is a connection. I think you just need to figure out what is motivating her and a good behavorist can do that for you.

 

[DogCrazy]

Try telling people to ignore her when they first meet her. If she walks up to them to sniff them or whatever without growling then they can toss her a treat while not looking at her. But only treat her when she's calm. Give her time and space, it's an ongoing thing you have to do. The more people ignore her the less stress she'll feel and the less she'll feel the need to protect or defend herself.

 

[jacquim]

I agree completely TwoDogs.
My boxer so far does great in social situations, but I have this issue with my female border collie. She is very fearful and has been since I got her at 16 weeks old. She does ok with the calm older dog coming for a sniff or a person saying a quick hello if she approaches them first. When a hyper dog, especially those bigger than her, come leaping onto her she snarls at them and tries to get away. If they persist, she escalates (although has never bit another dog, she bears her teeth as much as she can, growls and snaps in their direction). She is 10x worse on a leash where she feels trapped and as though she can't get away. She reacts similar to people who she is just casually walking by and they bend over and start calling her over and trying to touch her. She jumps back barking and growling at them. She especially does this to people who are wearing hats for some reason!
She has improved over the years with gentle socialization, but still results to snarling if she can't get away from a hyper dog.
She went through obedience classes as well (3 4 month sessions starting as a puppy, and completing an advanced obedience class at the top of her class) which was great for teaching her commands (she can sit, lay down, stay, leave it, come, twirl, roll over, high five, drop it, heal, go to the door, go to bed, etc..etc.. fantastically) but it seemed to make the socialization issues worse as she was in a situation where she was in a small room with about 8 other dogs, some very hyper, and was confined to her leash. One of the trainers would make her wear a muzzle when the dogs would "greet" each other and even though they prided themselves in training only through positive reinforcement, they pulled me aside from everyone else and told me that I had to pin her on the ground when she would growl. I didn't find that that helped at all, it seemed to only escalate the situation. I found that just avoiding her stressful situations and giving her lots of praise when she greets a dog appropriate has provided much more success.
I could not ask for a better dog around the house than her as she is great and never gets into trouble and learns very quickly but we have had to make a few adjustments in social situations. We go to the dog park for a good run frequently but only go in the very early morning when it is not busy and it tends to only be those who come every day with well exercised, calmer dogs. Occasionally if I am with others with dogs, we will go after dark as well when it is empty and she has her pack of dogs to run with that she has been gradually introduced to and now loves. If we come across a dog or person that she is feeling a bit off with, I just keep walking and tell her to come and she follows me and lets it go. If the dog keeps bothering her, I ask the owners of the dog to please call it away and we continue on. On her leash, we just keep walking if we come across people or dogs. We do not stop to greet them other than maybe a passing hello by me.
I was worried introducing our boxer puppy into the mix too but she got used to him pretty quickly. She'll groan and walk away if he starts jumping on her back but otherwise they play great together. It hasn't made any difference to how she responds to other puppies though.

I was told by one trainer that it is her way of correcting the dog/people when they are acting out and invading her personal space. If a person that we didn't know came up and leaped onto us and starting touching us, we wouldn't be thrilled about it either, especially if we are already shy people. I might start off casually saying hello to someone that I do not know but if they go from that to touching me, I am going to be put off by it. Unfortunately, a lot of people panic when they see her show her teeth and carry on and I have had a few rude remarks from others (meanwhile, their dog has done a marathon leap onto her back from across a field).

I would try to avoid the "intense" greetings with others and keep them pretty calm, starting with dogs who are quite mellow and will come for a nice sniff then carry about their business. You can tell people to give her a quick hello but to not get too rambunctious with her as it sometimes bothers her. If she is fine with the initial greeting but then begins to growl shortly after, try having her greet dogs briefly where she is being polite, then continue on your way, praising her for the good behaviour that she is exhibiting.
It is definitely a work in progress and requires consistency, and also learning what situations both of you can handle.

 

[Ileana]

Thank you all for your insights. TwoDogs - many thanks, your post is an eye-opener. I always throught Gracie to be quite dominant, not fearful... She sometimes "hugs" me, comes up and puts her paws on my shoulders, and nibbles at my ears or chin. Someone told me this was dominant behavior, as well as her demeanor with other dogs. (TwoDogs - your insight into her hugging me would be greatly appreciated - what do you think that means? I love it to death, but was told not to allow it :( )

I will try to keep her social interactions to a minimum, and ease her into a socil life to her liking. I have tried a little today and it worked great. If left alone, she will sit clamly and wait for the invader -dog or human - to be on their way. She wants nothing to do with them, in most cases. With some dogs she pulls, whines, and tries to get to them. She once played beautifully for 30 minutes with a shepherd, and didn't snarl until we leashed her.

Any other ideas or stories welcome...
Thank you all very much!

 

[Ileana]

I am interested in your comment about her having "excellent guard dog instincts"-in what way? Just wondering if there is a connection.

Her eyes are always on the horizon line. If someone is even remotely present, she will stay aware, alert, hackles up. If I call her she will come, but sit with her back at me, facing the unwanted person(s). Otherwise, if no one is around, she will come and sit facing me.
She runs checks of the home's perimeter on her own, unprompted, every few hours. Checks around, inspects, sniffs, then comes back to her sofa and goes back to sleep or plays with her toys. She is my 4th dog, but I have never seen such protective instincts in any of my former dogs.

Hope this helps...

 

[TwoDogs]

She sometimes "hugs" me, comes up and puts her paws on my shoulders, and nibbles at my ears or chin. Someone told me this was dominant behavior, as well as her demeanor with other dogs. (TwoDogs - your insight into her hugging me would be greatly appreciated - what do you think that means? I love it to death, but was told not to allow it :( )

The whole fear that if you let your dog hug or jump on you that your dog will be dominant over you is a load of bunk! It should be flushed down the toilet with the "don't ever play tug with your dog or it will turn aggressive" myth. Now, that is not to say that you should let your dog walk all over you, shove past you, jump on you unsolicited and have no respect for your personal space.

Both my dogs will jump up and give me "hugs" and kiss my face. They do it because it gets them something good. When they "hug & kiss" me, I giggle and laugh and talk to them in a silly voice. They know that giggles-laughs-and-silly-voice-from-mom usually leads to ear rubs and chin scratches, cookies or play, so they've decided that jumping up and licking my face is a behavior worth repeating. They've gotten good things from it often enough that just being allowed to do it makes them feel good which is why I can now use jumping up for "hugs" as a reward for really good obedience. They are only allowed to do it if I cue them to. My cue is a tap to my chest and the presentation of my arms to "hug" them. The word "enough" is the cue to stop and get down. Does it sound as though they are dominating me? ;-)

If you really look at the behavior you described "puts her paws on my shoulders, and nibbles at my ears or chin" from an ethological standpoint, it closely resembles the manner that puppies greet their mother when she comes back to the whelping box. It also resembles the licking that wolf pups will do to get the adult (i.e. more dominant) members of the pack to regurgitate food. Adult members of the pack will also greet more dominant members on their return to the pack by licking their chins and faces. Sure, they don't have to jump up to reach their faces, but that's only because they walk on four feet.

The bottom line is that it is an instinctive social behavior, but it is also very likely that the reason most dogs do it is that they have learned that good-stuff-for-dogs comes from engaging in the behavior.

 

[TyTysmom]

We encourage "huggy-huggy" from Tyson. We also encourage him to jump on us when we request it. Our "que" for him to jump up is to pretend like I'm jogging, other than they he'll occasionally jump up on my husband when he gets home from work but that's it.

We were told after we first got Tyson not to play tug-of-war with him because it will turn him into an aggressive dog. We listened to that advice at first but then after finding out the source was out of her mind on other things we also found out that the no tug-of-war was a joke too!

 

[ELubas]

Her eyes are always on the horizon line. If someone is even remotely present, she will stay aware, alert, hackles up. If I call her she will come, but sit with her back at me, facing the unwanted person(s). Otherwise, if no one is around, she will come and sit facing me.
She runs checks of the home's perimeter on her own, unprompted, every few hours. Checks around, inspects, sniffs, then comes back to her sofa and goes back to sleep or plays with her toys. She is my 4th dog, but I have never seen such protective instincts in any of my former dogs.

Hope this helps...

I would call that anxiety. A dog comfortable in the world gets protective when the need arises, but does not go "looking for it" Most times the behavior you are describing is based in fear and anxiety.